Rose Weasley and the Pathetic Potions Class
by insertcleverandwittytitlehere
Summary: Rose could be off having adventures outdoors, but instead she's stuck inside her potions class with a nosy professor and a potion that just doesn't want to stay still.
**A/N:** This is Beater 2 of the Chudley Cannons checking in for Round 2 of the QLFC.

 **Prompts:** The Cannons were chosen to write about Potions. Beater 2's prompt was to write about a character who hates the class. Additional prompts included 9. (word) watery, 13. (word) articulate, and 15. (dialogue) "It happened again, what do I do?"

 **Word count before A/N:** 1,807 words

 **I want to thank my lovely teammate Amy for betaing this fic for me.**

 **Further, I am not J.K. This is her world; I merely dabble in it.**

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"Oh, no!" Rose grabbed the lid to her cauldron. "Stop, stop, stop, stop, stop! Ahh!"

Brown, sloppy goop dripped out from under the newly placed lid. With both hands clapped over the steaming potion-gone-wrong, Rose scanned the classroom for two things: Professor Alabaster and a helping hand. The former was currently looking inside the ingredients closet, his back turned to his sixth year students. The latter was only a few stools away.

"Scorp!" Rose scream-whispered across the room. Her potion gurgled, and she was starting to feel a strain in her upper arms from forcing her lid to just. Stay. On! "Scorpius Malfoy!"

Finally, finally, finally! What felt like eons later, but still, _finally_ , Scorp looked her way. Then his stupid green eyes darted around the room, landing on Professor Alabaster's turned form, then back to her.

"Help me," she whimper-whispered this time.

Scorp ducked away from his own station, his black robes fanning out behind him like a cape. Rose could feel her eyes growing in size as he approached her, his platinum hair tousled just enough to look like he meant for it to swoop around like ocean waves. Scorp was smiling his all-knowing smile, perfect white teeth standing at the ready behind his thin, smooth lips.

Then he saw the steam and the brown goop and that smile dropped faster than Rose's grade was surely going to after today's lesson.

"What did you do?" Scorp's hand flew to the lid, which was about to shoot up like a Jack-in-the-Box.

"Me? Why do you always assume it's _me_? _Maybe_ the ingredients were bad. _Maybe_ the potion—"

"The potion didn't do this to itself, Rose," Scorp rolled his eyes. He must have been so used to her trying to make excuses about her horrid potions work.

But sometimes it was too damn hard to concentrate on this vial of dragon's blood and that crumbled up bezoar!

She had always liked the hands-on approach of using a wand. But potions just felt silly. Couldn't the wizarding world come up with a spell that would do the same trick as Liquid Luck? It seemed like a plausible and relatively good idea to Rose. Why bother with measurements and precise timetables? There were too many margins of error in potions.

Like at that exact moment with Rose's very own breach into those margins of errors.

Scorpius's free hand clamped down over Rose's hands. How on earth did Professor Alabaster not hear this?! "I don't understand why you always give the potions a personality like that."

"Because! It's easier to believe the potion hates me than to admit I'm actually terrible at potions." A low hum emanated from below the still-struggling lid. "Either way, we should probably—"

"Already ahead of you, love," Scorp, fast as ever, had his wand hand off the lid, into his pocket, and back out pointing at the rowdy cauldron. "Quickly."

Rose ripped off the lid—though, really, it didn't take much effort at all—and Scorpius quickly muttered out an Evanesco.

Her cauldron cleared, along with the steam, hum, and goop.

"Oh, thank Merlin," Rose sank on to her stool.

"I think you mean 'thank Scorpius,'" he teased, placing a quick kiss on her forehead and dashing back to his own station where his potion bubbled precisely as it should. He was so good with potions, which almost made Rose want to slap him. He _cheated_ anyways. His father was a healer, and he'd taught Scorp the basics before his son even got to Hogwarts.

Okay, so she didn't actually want to slap him for it. Usually, Alabaster had the class work in pairs, and then Scorp helped Rose stay on track. Those kind of days were great. It was days like this one, when she worked alone, which made her dislike for the class come to the forefront of her mind.

Rose stared into the grey bottom of her cauldron, muttering into it. "I really, really, _really_ hate this class."

Twenty minutes later, Rose was still staring into her cauldron, though it wasn't empty anymore.

"Hmm, a bit watery, Miss Weasley," Professor Alabaster squaked from beside her. "Perhaps you would benefit from starting from the top."

He didn't even give her a chance to protest. The sloshy, green liquid vanished from her sight, replaced yet again with an empty, dry bottom. Rose felt dying would be easier than this. Maybe she could curl up inside her cauldron and disappear herself. Or at least apparate into Care of Magical Creatures, where she truly belonged.

There were animals for starters. And Professor Hagrid _never_ asked for parchments. Not since he had to start wearing glasses to read them, anyways. He was always misplacing those silly half-moon spectacles he insisted on wearing. And since he could rarely find them, he chose not to assign written homework since he didn't want to struggle to read student essays.

And that was more Rose's speed. Little extraneous work, lots of furry beasts to snuggle into. Everyone else hated the Blast-Ended Skrewts, but that was because they didn't know how to calm them down in the first place. For some reason, she could. And she loved doing it, too. It wasn't anything like ruddy old potions cla—

"Alabaster sent me over."

Her head jerked up, red curls bouncing around her face. Scorp was back now, this time acting as a babysitter instead of the good boyfriend he was. They'd been friends for ages… since second year. Last year, nearing the start of their O.W.L.'s, Scorp practically screamed at her about how crazy she made him. It was during a potions lesson, actually, and Alabaster wanted to show the then-fifth-years a couple advanced potions—including Amortentia. The rest was history. Scorp couldn't contain himself, apparently high on the fumes of Rose's shampoo, and screamed, "I've loved you since I met you!"

"He doesn't trust me," Rose said to the Scorp in front of her. The one who was looking at her with adoring, puppy dog eyes.

"Sure he does…" But even Scorpius had the decency to look sheepish. "Here, start again."

He handed her two sprigs of boomthistle.

With only an hour left of class, Rose began her potion _again_ for the third time.

"Oh, no!" she gasped half an hour later. "It happened again, what do I do?!"

Brown goop was starting to spill over the edge of the cauldron. Scorp, who had taken this opportunity of "helping" Rose as a way to stare at her without cause, jumped up from his daydreams. "How do you keep doing this?"

His hands were already searching for the lid. Rose beat him to it, though, and jammed the topper onto her potion.

"I didn't do anything! The potion—"

"Rose!"

"Okay, fine! The potion didn't do anything! _I_ did this. I'm bloody _rotten_ at potions. And good thing too," she chanced a look at Scorp, "I only took this class to be with you."

Which was true. She didn't know what she wanted to do after Hogwarts like Scorp did, so she decided that she'd keep all options open. Even if she struggled through potions for five years prior, Rose knew Scorp would be there too, which made her a bit more confident in her choice.

His perfect smile returned, with his stupid, perfect teeth and his stupid, smooth lips. Would it be terribly wrong to kiss him just then? Would it _really_ hurt to get a quick taste of him before her potion exploded and the whole room was covered in Rowena knows what?

The lid rattled violently beneath her hands, telling her that her thoughts were definitely in the wrong place at that moment.

 _Focus_ , she told herself. _Think of a way out of this. You've got Mum's brains and Dad's level-head in rough situations. Think, Rose. Think!_

"What spell did you use?" Scorp was now holding down his half of the lid with his elbows. The steam was starting to rear its ugly head, growing like an octopus's arms from beneath the lid, and it was only a matter of time before the hum would begin.

"I—I don't… I, uh…" Who was she kidding? She didn't use a spell. She completely forgot that she needed to say something on top of adding ingredients!

"Are you always this articulate, love?" Scorp teased. Then he pulled out his wand again and vanished her goop once she lifted the lid.

"Bollocks." Rose slumped over, her hands catching her head, her hair falling around her face like a curtain. "I'll never get this right, Scorp."

"Aw, Rose," she felt him slide an arm around her body, his long fingers resting on her waist. "Don't say that. You're brilliant, you are. You've exceeded every standard in every other class but this one. You're still a genius around here. Silly little Draught of the Living Dead aside."

"Yeah?" she pushed aside the hair from her face so she could look at him.

"Yeah," Scorp lightly touched her on the nose.

"Mind telling that to Alabaster then?" she finally sat up, her eyes peering into her yet again empty cauldron.

Scorp gently pulled her head away from her growing disappointment, leading her by the chin toward his own face. Gently, he kissed her lips, smiling while doing so.

When they pulled apart, Rose felt herself calming down. It was just one potion. One class. She had plenty to be happy about. Scorpius for starters…

"You know, we did have our first kiss in this room," Scorp said slyly. "How could you hate potions for that?"

"Well I didn't kiss potions class, now, did I? I kissed you. So yes. I still absolutely hate potions."

"Hmmm… that's too bad." Rose and Scorpius turned toward their ever-lurking teacher. Seriously. Did he do anything else? "That's going to make the rest of this year that much more difficult for you."

Alabaster looked into her cauldron, scowled, and sauntered over to his desk.

"Great." The empty grey bottom stared back, waiting. Watching. Biding its time until it would swallow even more of her pride.

"Just think," Scorp squeezed her thigh gently, "only five months till summer."

"Forgive me if I can't hardly contain myself," Rose rolled her eyes.

Scorp placed another chaste kiss on her temple. "See you for lunch?"

"Of course," she smiled. Scorp returned to his own station once again, bottling up his brew. Rose, instead, began to prepare her right hand for a very, very long essay she'd most certainly find herself writing later that night.

She packed up her things and headed toward her professor's desk.

Taking a deep breath, Rose smiled to herself. Anything was better than brewing potions, even talking with an insensitive potions professor who liked to punish with parchments.

"Do your worst, Alabaster." Her smile grew wider. "Do. Your. Worst."


End file.
